Booker T. Washington student senior June Rule, 18, reads a one-minute play about the Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe during the Edgar Allan Poe Victorian Festival on Oct. 11 at the Hampton-Illinois Branch Library in Dallas.

(
Photo by Ben Torres
- special contributor)

The Dallas Area Paranormal Society's Shelly Branigan-Olive (left) and Alan King discuss devices used during investigations at Audelia Road Branch Library.

Much of Edgar Allan Poe’s writing conjures up feelings of suspense and torment, horror and fantasy.

This month, the Dallas Public Library system is celebrating Poe’s work in conjunction with Halloween at various libraries and venues.

“His short stories appeal to the scary part of things without there being monsters or anything like that,” said Jonathan Carr, an associate at J. Erik Jonsson Central Library Children’s Center in downtown Dallas who helped organize the event. “He takes you to that world and back.”

The festival grew out of a one-day event hosted at the central library branch last year.

“We wanted to put on a Halloween-type festival that would be both entertaining and have a literary element,” Carr said. “Edgar Allan Poe seemed like the best fit.”

The event got such a good response that organizers decided to bring other Dallas public libraries, and several venues outside of Dallas, into the mix.

“It was such a big success last year. We wanted to create a month-long event that people from all over could attend,” Carr said.

This year’s Edgar Allan Poe Victorian Festival runs through Oct. 31 with various events, including all-day festivities on Oct. 24 at the central library. That day will feature games, crafts, story readings, a haunted house and dance lessons.

Poe, who died in Oct. 1849, is a fabled American author and poet whose tales are still recognized as some of the best in the horror genre. His best-known works include the poem The Raven and horror tales The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Tell-Tale Heart.

His death at 40 years old is shrouded in mystery — nobody knows exactly how and why he died.

On Oct. 11, students from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts performed one-minute plays about the death of Poe as part of the festival.

Playwriting teacher Guinea Bennett-Price said she had been looking for ways her students could showcase more of their works when the opportunity arose to be part of the festival.

Students wrote 60 plays in all after watching documentaries about the life and death of Poe and researching his poetry.

“Some of them have imaginary characters,” Bennett-Price said. In one play, Poe’s wife and ex-wife fight over who loves him the most after he’s already dead.

“They’re all over the map. They got really creative,” she said. “We didn’t try to be historically accurate. We took some liberties.”

The students will perform at least 15 plays again Oct. 24 at the central library.

Another program about Poe’s death, “The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe,” scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday at three libraries, is among the programs featured by Big Thought, a Dallas nonprofit.

The festival will also incorporate elements of Steampunk, a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that incorporates 19th century steam-powered technology, and other Halloween-related activities.

William Ritter, author of young adult novels Jackaby and Beastly Bones, will be the special guest at a Steampunk-themed party at the central library Oct. 24. The party will feature a costume contest, games, mad scientist displays and a haunted dungeon.

Local Steampunk collective Ghost Ship Allegory will host panels Oct. 24 about Victorian society, including one about the strange rituals of Victorian mourning.

“They were weird,” said Kathryn Poe of Ghost Ship Allegory. “When Queen Victoria lost Prince Albert, she went off the deep end and people followed. There became a huge set of rules about what people did when someone died: what you wore, getting their pictures made when someone passed.

“There are a lot of pictures of children that appear to be sleeping, except they’re not.”

Carr said each library and venue has organized its own event for the festival that is in some way related to Poe, Steampunk or Halloween.

A program at Audelia Road Branch Library in Lake Highlands Oct. 3 featured two speakers from the Dallas Area Paranormal Society.

The organization was formed in 2001 and occasionally speaks at various events about conducting investigations into paranormal activities at homes, historical buildings and other sites.

Other programs will range from films and storytelling to science experiments and craft projects. Several programs will be in venues other than libraries, including Dallas Heritage Village, Farmers Branch Historical Park and Heritage Farmstead Museum in Plano.

Friends of the Dallas Public Library, the nonprofit that supports library programs, is the main sponsor of the festival.

Carr said he hopes the event continues annually.

Poe is a great writer to introduce to children during this time of year for the literary element, he said.